Ed Miliband's Twitter account hacked, sends rude tweets

Cabinet minister Ed Miliband is the latest victim of a Twitter phishing attack which hacks the account and sends other twitterers obscene messages.

“Hhey, i’ve been having better sex and longer with this here”, Mr Miliband appeared to direct message (DM) some of his 6,664 followers, early on Friday morning.

As part of the message there was a link, which twitter users who received the message are being urged not to click on, although there are reports that this is a website selling sexual-performance drugs.

Miliband, who is Energy Secretary followed his sexy tweet with: “Oh dear it seems like I’ve fallen victim to twitter’s latest ‘phishing’ scam.”

Twitter posted a message to its Twitter Safety channel late Thursday warning users to beware of direct messages. “If you get a DM from an enthusiastic lady wanting to converse by IM, please ignore. User is likely compromised & request is spam.”

Security experts believe that the messages are related to the fake ‘This you?’ tweet sent out earlier this week. In this scam respondents were led to a false Twitter log-in page. Once they filled in their details spammers were able to have access to the accounts, sending out more false links to followers.

“Of course, it’s not the case that Ed Miliband was specifically targeted by the hackers. He’s just one of tens of thousands of Twitter users who have been hit in the last few days,” explains Graham Cluley from Sophos wrote on his blog. Cluely also urged people to regularly change their passwords and check the Settings/Connections page of their Twitter accounts.

Ed Miliband is not the only MP to be hacked in the spate. Press Association is reporting that Harriet Harman admitted to MPs that a tweet was sent from her account to a ‘surprised’ shadow prisons minister Alan Duncan. She stated that she “wouldn’t ever send a tweet like that”.

Other victims include the head of audio at The Guardian newspaper, whose account told followers that he was “24, female and horny” and the country’s Press Complaints Commission was also hit. Even Twitter’s oldest user, 104-year-old Ivy Bean, fell victim to the scam.